Last week, Ashton Kutcher tweeted out a (since deleted) phone number and encouraged followers to "text me for the truth." The tweet landed amid a flurry of headlines about Demi Moore's new memoir, "Inside Out," in which she details the unraveling of her marriage to Ashton, whom she says cheated on her after they shared intimate encounters with other women.
Fans assumed Ashton's "text me for the truth" tweet would garner a reply featuring his side of the Demi story. Instead, it texted back the actor and his wife, Mila Kunis' reasons for believing Donald Trump should be impeached. That seeming redirect of public attention from Ashton's role in Demi's book to the state of the union probably came as no surprise to insiders close to the "Two and a Half Men" star and his wife.
"The unwanted attention has been hard to deal with. [Ashton and Mila] have no interest in being dragged into the spotlight or reliving the past. Ashton knew it was coming and he did have a heads up. But of course he would prefer not be brought into this," a source tells E! News.
"Demi was always very private so it came as a surprise that she wanted to air all of her dirty laundry and have so much focus and attention on her personal life. Mila and Ashton are just riding out the media attention and know it will die down soon."
Ashton and Demi married in 2005 and split in 2011 after eight years together. According to Demi's memoir, she felt pressured by the attention placed on their 15-year age gap but she was also trying to experience her 20s vicariously through him, in a way, since hers had been so different, given her complicated childhood, past sexual abuse and intensely busy career.
Speaking to Diane Sawyer while promoting the book, the actress discussed how her split from Ashton signaled distress that reached beyond the bounds of their marriage.
"I really know that there are parts of what occurred with this relationship ending that were a level of devastating for me that wasn't really just about that relationship," she said. "It was really about my whole life."
In other interviews, she said she hoped "to engage with" her ex-husbands before the book's release. "I had no interest in anybody being a bad guy," she told the Wall Street Journal.
And not all of her exes seem to feel Demi portrayed them as such. Demi's ex-husband Bruce Willis and his current wife, Emma Heming, supported her at the Los Angeles book launch party.
Jon Cryer, whom Demi claims in the book lost his virginity to her, tweeted a correction saying he had, in fact, had sex for the first time "in high school," then added that he "was over the moon for her" when they were involved and that he now has "nothing but affection and not a regret in the world" about their time together.
As for Ashton and Mila's distaste for the attention, E!'s source points out whatever happened between Ashton and Demi is very much in the past.
"Mila is very supportive and understanding," the outlet's insider says. "It was a different time in Ashton's life and feels like a lifetime ago for all of them. They have moved on from all of that and have a completely different life now with their kids and family."